He laughed. The sound scared her like nothing else he’d done before. “I’m gonna introduce you to some real playful fellas. They’re gonna be your playmates for a while. Until you decide you’re ready to talk.”
Even as chaotic as her mind was, Lena sensed the threat on a primal level. She put on brakes, digging her heels into the slick floor. He continued to drag her as if he wasn’t even aware of her attempts to struggle against him. Her heels made squawking noises as her feet skidded along the metal tiles, but she couldn’t tell any difference other than that.
Looking around for a possibility of escape, Lena discovered the real difference between this floor and the others she’d seen. There were only two enormous holding pens instead of individual cells. Dark shadows clustered in both--many dark shadows.
“No!”
He ignored that.
“I’ll talk,” she babbled.
He stopped and looked down at her for several moments. Finally, a grin split his face. “After this, if you’re able. I’m overdue for some entertainment.”
Lena began clawing at his hand. When that failed to produce the desired results, she sank her teeth into his flesh.
He slapped her, twice.
Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she clenched her jaws tighter.
Finally, he merely grabbed her nose, squeezing off her air.
She struggled, twisting her head. Dark spots began swarming around her, the cloud growing until she could no longer stand it. She released her grip on him, sucking in a mouthful of air.
Grabbing a fistful of hair, he hauled her upward until he could wrap one meaty arm around her middle.
“Back away from the door!” he barked as he stopped at the cell door.
No one moved for several moments, but when he released his hold on her hair and pulled an electrified rod from his belt loop, the men in the cell began backing slowly away until they were packed near the back of the room.
“You’re not seriously planning on going through with this?” The doctor demanded abruptly.
“Pain and fear, doc. The best lessons include both, don’t they bitch?”
Stunned and disoriented for several moments, Lena began struggling again at that, beating her heels against the man’s shins, trying to reach back to grab his hair or claw at his face.
A buzzer sounded and the door slid open.
Before Lena could do more than scream ‘No!’ she felt herself flying through the air as he pitched her inside. Pain seemed to shoot through her from every direction as she hit the floor and skidded.
For several moments after she’d stopped, it almost seemed as if everyone was holding their breath.
“What’s the matter? You guys forgot what a female smells like?”
Someone uttered a roar that sounded more animal than human.
The hairs on the back of Lena’s neck stood up even as she began scrambling toward the door. Someone kneed her. A body fell on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs. It took Lena several moments to figure out that one huge man stood over her, pulverizing the other men that surged toward them.
She didn’t have much of a view of him from the floor, but she didn’t need one to know she didn’t want to wait around until he’d fought the others off of her. Wrenching free of the legs clamped on either side of her waist, she scrambled on all fours toward the door again.
The guard stuck his foot through the bars as she reached it, planting the sole of his boot on top of her head and giving her a shove backwards.
“You’re in luck, sweetheart,” the guard shouted over the racket of animalistic snarls and growls and the thud of fists, his voice threaded with avid amusement. “Black Stew don’t wanna share you.”
“Are you out of your mind? You idiot! They’re going to tear her apart,” the doctor growled. “I’m sounding the alarm.”
With a growl of rage, the guard took a running step, caught the doctor by his lab coat, and lifted him clear of the floor. “If you ain’t got the stomach for it, go!” he snarled. “But just so’s you know, if you open your mouth, or touch that fucking alarm, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
“Let go of me, you animal,” the doctor said in a strangled voice.
